Organic milk and eggs definitely taste different. To me, they taste better, but when I was younger, I used to hate the taste of organic milk. I just wasn’t used to it, but now I am, and I prefer it. Organic eggs and milk actually have higher vitamin content, as well.

As far as produce, I think they taste pretty much the same; I think most of the people who prefer them, do for the same reasons as KrystalElyse, for their own safety, and for the conservation of the environment.

I work at a 125 year old, family run farm and have had to do a ton of research for my job.

“Organic” produce is sprayed just as much, if not more than traditionally grown produce. They simply use pesticides that have been deemed organic. Non of these pesticides have been proven to be any better or worse for you than traditional pesticides. The marketing of organic as healthier is a scam.

Obviously, an excessive amount of tradtional pesticides is bad for you.

What you want to look for is produce that is locally grown using the IPM (Intergrated Pest Management) system. IPM advocates working to not spray at all or keeping it to a minimum.

Examples of IPM strategies:
• begin growing in a greenhouse and transplant to the field when the plant is mature enough to fight off pests.
• plant a row of tobacco along side a row of lettuce. bugs would rather eat the tobacco.
• lay down reflective material around crops. flying bugs become confused between the ground and sky and fly away.
• giant fans in the fields to disrupt flying bugs airflow.

Spraying is a last resort. And then the choice should be the most effective spray (sometimes organic) so you have to spray only once or twice.

The farm I’m at, for example, has not sprayed it’s beets in over 25 years.

About salmonella – have you noticed that the salmonella and e coli outbreaks seem to be tied to the massive food growing and redistribution system that we have in this country, which allows a localized outbreak to be spread far and wide as far as possible? That’s why people in Maine and Phoenix can get sick from a smidge of bacteria that spread in Iowa and mixed with food from Texas and Kansas before being shipped, for example. Buying locally (although not necessarily organic, though the two are often tied together) is a way to avoid that, because you generally know who the farmer is and where the food came from.

When I say I buy Organic, I mostly do that at the Farmer’s Market. The huge industrial Organic complex is less different from huge industrial Conventionally grown food, imho.

In the summer, we eat all of our own produce, which is entirely organic. Grown with compost horse shit and no sprays. Best vegetables you can eat. This year we got lucky and still had tomatoes and peppers into late October.

I buy local, organic. Which is to say, I buy all my goods from the Green City Market when I can. When I can’t, I go to the place that has the best looking produce. I buy free range eggs, even though I know there isn’t a lot of regulation behind the term, because I want to be nice to the chickies as much as possible. We get free range, appropriately fed meat for the same reasons—treat them well until we kill them.

We get whatever produce looks best and is in season. In the spring, we’ll start getting a CSA box. I take local over registered organic, small over factory.

I don’t think organic always=better, thank you @cprevite for all that helpful info.
I buy the produce that looks and smells “real”. I avoid the orange waxy tomatoes and don’t mind paying more for the fat juicy red tomatoes. I don’t know how they’re grown but I’m more willing to eat something that looks less like a science project.
In the summer we go to the local farmers market.

Sometimes. With a budget, organic is not always least expensive. I try to buy organic fruits & vegetables, and locally grown when possible. We buy local beef from a grower we know.
I’m not convinced of the benefits of orgnic cereals and other packaged foods since the guidelines for what qualifies as organic are pretty broad.

@elijahsuicide: I don’t know about kosher (as we don’t carry kosher products at the farm), but we prefer barn raised over free range because we control what they eat, they still have lots of room to roam about when the hens are not “working”.

We feel that free range is not enough of a controlled environment. It leaves them open to injury from accident or animal attack and they can eat things they shouldn’t.

@elijahsuicide: kosher and free range are not mutually exclusive. Meat could be free range and kosher, one or the other, or neither.

Your main “health” advantage (as opposed to ethical reasons for choosing it) with kosher meat is in the animal’s diet. The truth about the meat industry is that a whole lot of animals are being fed byproducts of other animals that imho they would never eat given the choice, and it’s just plain nasty, such as feeding chickens ground-up cow bones, and feeding cows chicken shit. For more info about this (because it’s such a pleasant topic) see this question and its accompanying links. It’s truly disgusting. With kosher meat, you don’t have to worry about that, because if something sounds gross, odds are, it’s not kosher.

@laureth that makes me sad, I thought it was more humane. I guess I need to do more research.
@La chica gomela I know they don’t feed them tons of crap, that’s one of the reasons I choose kosher. Thanks for providing the links.

(When an animal is killed in a Kosher manner, it must be fully conscious at the time of death, from what I understand. Non-kosher slaughterhouses at least attempt to stun them first, so they might not have the full feeling/understanding of what’s going on.)